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The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

Come live with me, and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove,

That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,

Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,

Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,

By shallow rivers to whose falls

Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses,

And a thousand fragrant posies,

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle,

Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool,

Which from our pretty lambs we pull;

Fair lined slippers for the cold,

With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,

With coral clasps and amber studs:

And if these pleasures may thee move,

Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherds’ swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May morning.

If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me, and be my love.

Marriage

GREGORY CORSO

Should I get married? Should I be good?

Astound the girl next door with my velvet suit and faustus hood?

Don’t take her to movies but to cemeteries

tell all about werewolf bathtubs and forked clarinets

then desire her and kiss her and all the preliminaries

and she going just so far and I understanding why

not getting angry saying You must feel! It’s beautiful to feel!

Instead take her in my arms lean against an old crooked tombstone

and woo her the entire night the constellations in the sky—

When she introduces me to her parents

back straightened, hair finally combed, strangled by a tie,

should I sit knees together on their 3rd degree sofa

and not ask Where’s the bathroom?

How else to feel other than I am,

often thinking Flash Gordon soap—

O how terrible it must be for a young man

seated before a family and the family thinking

We never saw him before! He wants our Mary Lou!

After tea and homemade cookies they ask What do you do for a living?

Should I tell them? Would they like me then?

Say All right get married, we’re losing a daughter

but we’re gaining a son—

And should I then ask Where’s the bathroom?

O God, and the wedding! All her family and her friends

and only a handful of mine all scroungy and bearded

just wait to get at the drinks and food—

And the priest! he looking at me as if I masturbated

asking me Do you take this woman for your lawful wedded wife?

And I trembling what to say say Pie Glue!

I kiss the bride all those corny men slapping me on the back

She’s all yours, boy! Ha-ha-ha!

And in their eyes you could see some obscene honeymoon going

on—

Then all that absurd rice and clanky cans and shoes

Niagara Falls! Hordes of us! Husbands! Wives! Flowers!

Chocolates!

All streaming into cozy hotels

All going to do the same thing tonight

The indifferent clerk he knowing what was going to happen

The lobby zombies they knowing what

The whistling elevator man he knowing

The winking bellboy knowing

Everybody knowing! I’d be almost inclined not to do anything!

Stay up all night! Stare that hotel clerk in the eye!

Screaming: I deny honeymoon! I deny honeymoon!

running rampant into those almost climactic suites

yelling Radio belly! Cat shovel!

O I’d live in Niagara forever! in a dark cave beneath the Falls

I’d sit there the Mad Honeymooner

devising ways to break marriages, a scourge of bigamy

a saint of divorce—

But I should get married I should be good

How nice it’d be to come home to her

and sit by the fireplace and she in the kitchen

aproned young and lovely wanting my baby

and so happy about me she burns the roast beef

and comes crying to me and I get up from my big papa chair

saying Christmas teeth! Radiant brains! Apple deaf!

God what a husband I’d make! Yes, I should get married!

So much to do! like sneaking into Mr. Jones’ house late at night

and cover his golf clubs with 1920 Norwegian books

Like hanging a picture of Rimbaud on the lawnmower

like pasting Tannu Tuva postage stamps all over the picket fence

like when Mrs Kindhead